Energy friendly building - what are we waiting for?

From September 2007 to October 2008 The Danish board of Technology has carried out a project on energy friendly building. Technology allows for building houses with a very low consumption of energy but energy friendly building does not seem to increase remarkably in Denmark. Why is the extent of environmentally friendly building much bigger in Germany, Austria and Switzerland? What are the Danish barriers? Which incentives should be introduced to get the development going on the practical level? And what should be done to get the large building owners – state, municipalities as well as private owners - interested?

This project has examined the most important barriers to get a development towards more energy friendly building started in Denmark started. The project has analyzed some of the most recent national and international measures and studied some of the larger energy friendly buildings projects in Denmark (Stenløse, Køge and Ringgården) as well as at an European level.

The project was carried out by a working group of experts. The working group has suggested six initiatives to be taken by the Danish government to promote energy friendly building:

• The government should make specific goals for reducing CO2 emissions in the building sector and not only in the society as a whole.
• The public sector should be a frontrunner and role model for saving energy in old as well as in new buildings.
• The building regulations should be tightened so that the planned demand for reduction of CO2 emissions coming up in 2015 should be accelerated.
• The government should build demo-houses and the demo-projects should be evaluated in a thorough and uniform way. Good experiences should be promoted.
• There should be financial incentives for people who carry out energy friendly building. This could work through the taxation system.
• There should be made uniform standards for the calculations of the total costs of constructing and running energy friendly buildings.

The project was led by Ulla Holm Vincentsen. Project assistant was Mikkel Krogsgaard Niss.